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Oh, Chrono Cross. How close you were to being one of the best games ever! Your soundtrack is untouchable, let's get that out of the way. I mean seriously that is some gorgeous music. "Radical Dreamers," "Life," "Scars of Time," "Another World"... best video game soundtrack of all time. OF ALL TIME. Except for the battle music.

Speaking of battles, what's up with your battle system? Why is it so dull? Why do all of the characters play exactly the same? Why do you have to re-allocate elements so often? Why even bother with elements? What happened to double and triple techs and y'know, character specific attacks?

Speaking of characters, what the hell dude. Why are there more than 40+ characters in this game. You're not Suikoden. You're a Chrono game. Why are you trying to be Suikoden? It doesn't make sense and it dilutes the plot dramatically. In the grand scheme of things only 8 or so of them are important, so why not just have 8 playable characters and work them into the plot?

. Bro, you lost me. There's a ton of truly great ideas here, but if your audience is so bewildered while playing the game, their emotional impact is going to be lost. It's too much to process in TWO playthroughs, let alone one. Sure, I get it after re-reading your wikipedia page a couple times, but it still doesn't make much sense, especially if you come at it as a sequel to Chrono Trigger.

Speaking of Chrono Trigger, while it's cool that you use some musical themes from the prior game, and it's cool that you sort of SPOILERS

Spoiler:

provide resolution to the whole Schala thing, what's the deal with turning the main characters into like creepy ghost children? And oh yeah, turning Robo into a computer program that essentially gets overwritten by F.A.T.E.? And turning an amnesiac Magus from another world into a parlor trick magician. And killing Lucca and burning down her orphanage?

Did that happen? Not cool, bro! Again, I was so confused by most of it I don't really know if all that stuff is true or not. Stop being cruel to characters people love!

So yeah, CC, bro, I love you but you should've been soooo much better. Let's take the playable character number to 8 or so, make them all important to the story and FIX THAT BATTLE SYSTEM. Do that and I think the plot would be easier to take and understand.

Oh, Chrono Cross. How close you were to being one of the best games ever! Your soundtrack is untouchable, let's get that out of the way. I mean seriously that is some gorgeous music. "Radical Dreamers," "Life," "Scars of Time," "Another World"... best video game soundtrack of all time. OF ALL TIME. Except for the battle music.

Gale really is quite... different. The recording by the WDR Rundfunkorchester K

You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"- George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

This, I'd have to disagree with. I loved Chrono Cross's plot. Yes, it's convoluted and it's certainly not for everybody, but it's quite well-done. I'd prefer a plot like this over a straightforward "I'll get my revenge and then the story's done when I kill them all" plot any day.

CC's plot is complex, but that doesn't make it good. I think what a lot of people have against it is that it's very disrespectful to the plot of the original CT. It trivializes the efforts of the main characters, takes joke characters and turn them into serious plot elements, has the original cast do things that are completely uncharacteristic of them,

Spoiler:

kills certain characters off-screen with barely a mention

... I could go on. It's like the author of CC's plot wrote a fanfic where he introduced a bunch of original characters and decided that his new characters were way more interesting and important than the original ones, so he just casually wrote them out. I can't even enjoy CC's plot on its own as a separate entity, because it just doesn't make any sense if you're not familiar with CT.

On top of that CC's cast of playable characters is huge, and they felt the need to try to write scenes so that whatever characters were in your party at the time would contribute to the conversations... which means that most of your characters have flat, generic dialog (aside from the inclusion of whatever accent or personal tic they have to make them "unique") and little development. The large number of bizarre, joke characters didn't help.

And that's pretty much why I didn't like CC. I understood it, I just didn't enjoy it.

I've always said that Chrono Cross was a great game, but not as a sequel to Chrono Trigger. I loved the stamina system, and thought that the element grid was actually a good idea (though it definitely needed a "locking" mechanism to make certain elements stay permanently attached. It's plot was okay (really confusing though, and as people have said, disrespectful to Chrono Trigger), and the soundtrack is, to this day, one of the best.

I just think that they lost out on the concept of "less is more" with the characters. Most of the characters didn't need to exist. I was, at one point, designing sprites for two 16-bit remakes (Demiforce's and an independent one), and in the independent project, we had narrowed the list down to the following characters:Serge (white)..............Lynx (black)Kid (red) ....................Harle (red) - we changed Harle's element to simply be a mirror of Kid.Leena B (blue) ............Leena A (blue) - basically, Leena B is with you until you become Lynx, and then Leena A is the first to recognize Serge for who he is despite the disguise. Leena A stays with you for the rest of the game.Magil (black) ..............Guile (white) - Magil is really there for Kid, so he sticks with her but passes his stats on to Guile, who is one of Lynx's minions. When you change back to Serge, Guile leaves and Magil rejoins your team.Norris (yellow) - Basically, we needed a yellow innate, and Norris is actually kind of important behind the scenes of the game, especially if you're a Kid-ditcher. He also has potential for real uniqueness. Can be regained after you become Lynx, but requires a side-quest.Glenn (green) - How could we NOT include Glenn? Just like Norris, he can be regained after you become Lynx, but it requires a side-quest.Dario (black) [completely optional] - a side-quest appears after you gain the Einlanzer and the Mastermune to recover the Masamune of the opposite dimension (I think it's the Home World?). When you give it to Dario, he becomes a party member.

Unfortunately, Demiforce never actually completed his reverse-engineering of the Chrono Trigger Engine, and the project just kind of died.

First off, I wasn't implying that complexity immediately equates to beauty. If it seemed like that and I confused you, I sincerely apologize. Euler's identity is stated so simply, yet it is so beautiful. Chrono Cross's plot was complex and good; well, at least for me. I do respect your opinion, though, and your post actually made me mull over things a bit. Maybe I simply let those details slip because I was too pleased with the general direction.

I just think that they lost out on the concept of "less is more" with the characters. Most of the characters didn't need to exist. I was, at one point, designing sprites for two 16-bit remakes (Demiforce's and an independent one), and in the independent project, we had narrowed the list down to the following characters:

I don't think I'd like the game as much if the characters were reduced to only those 11. They're not the only ones that had more depth than a piece of artwork with lines of dialogue. In addition the ones you mentioned, I'd keep Fargo, Karsh, Luccia, Radius, Razzly, Riddel and maybe Steena. Oh, and definitely Poshul. Nothing beats a pink talking dog with lisp.

I never minded CC disrespecting CT's story. If a sequel has a good story to tell, it shouldn't be afraid to gut the previous entry in the series. CT's story was fun and all, but other than the Zeal parts of the game (all of which were written by CC's author), I didn't think it was anything special. /Katou fanboy

Doesn't Suikoden have a huge cast of recruitable characters? Is there a reason for any game to have 50+ possible party members?

While the Suiko games have huge casts of characters, they handle them very differently from CC. Each game typically has a core set of those characters who are important to the plot, and the game will require you to bring the important ones with you for whatever part of the plot you're on. The typical party size of six characters, though, means that even if you're required to bring a few, there's plenty of space left over for you to bring some others. Not all of the recruitable characters are even playable, technically -- many of them run shops or mini-games in your castle, or they just wander around the halls and talk.

But the important difference here is that the core cast of characters receive a lot of development and dialog, and the secondary characters generally just stay out of the way when plot is going on.

I'd say that Suikoden (I & II particularly) do a pretty great job of having tons of characters that still have personality to them. This is probably do to Suikoden's "sim-city" elements, and the fact that their plots are straight-forward and fast moving. Oh we have to go to the pirate cave? Let's meet new characters. We have to go to the Land of Dragons? New characters. Warriors' Village? New characters. And so on.

Even say for example... Alex and Hilda, the recruitable INN KEEPERS in Suikoden II are more likable and better developed than say, "NeoFio", Korcha, Skully, etc. Obviously it has something to do with CC's characters being just plain weird. Mushroom guy? Mexican wrestler? I mean seriously developers, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING. WHO CARES ABOUT THESE PEOPLE.

I suppose what I mean to say is that since a great deal of character recruitment is tied directly to the main plot, recruitment feels very organic and natural in Suikoden as opposed to CC. Plus, they're just plain... more normal and written better, which makes them relatable.

I don't think I'd like the game as much if the characters were reduced to only those 11. They're not the only ones that had more depth than a piece of artwork with lines of dialogue. In addition the ones you mentioned, I'd keep Fargo, Karsh, Luccia, Radius, Razzly, Riddel and maybe Steena. Oh, and definitely Poshul. Nothing beats a pink talking dog with lisp.

I think that while many of those characters were important, there's no earthly reason for them to be playable, and therein lies the rub.

I agree with Cidolfas completely. All of the Acacia Dragoons would remain in the story, and Riddel would actually be a much MORE prominent character, just not playable. There's also Zappa the blacksmith, Doc, Radius, and Pierre (who ALMOST made it into the cut) who all really contribute to the story, but don't necessarily need to be in your party.

All good choices, but I don't think that Grobyc really "fit" with the world of Chrono Cross very well. I personally pushed for Dario to be put in because I saw it as a slap in the face that in the original game, you could recruit any character except the one you actually WANTED to have.

Spoken my mind on this game before in the other CC thread. Try as I might I have never been able to grasp what people like about the game. Clunky battles, undeveloped characters and I can't even remember what the story was about. Graphics and music are alright.

Agree with Miyosaka. The Suikoden games manage to have even more characters than CC and still make them likeable and interesting.

I think the reason why CC gets more hate than you'd expect is simple: potential. It is not simply a bad or mediocre game. It's a game that had a ton of potential and squandered much of it away for no good reason. The flaws (too many characters, too much plot squeezed into a tiny part of the game, lagging storyline, frustrating element setup) could largely have been fixed by doing less work, or different work, not more. And what's left shows a lot of promise, which makes it even more annoying.

Yay! Another Chrono Cross hatefest, brought to you in part by the people who should have just played CT again.

Hah, couldn't have said it better myself. It's surprising that people are still carrying open wounds from Chrono Cross not being "Chrono Trigger 2." My thesis on the matter is that those who didn't like Cross either refused to step outside their lighthearted game's comfort zone, or are either too ignorant or too shortsighted to see that doing something as profound as messing with timelines will have serious repercussions. I've never asked, but I'm guessing said people didn't like Dalton's additional cameo in the DS version.

Because, frankly, it's an outstanding game on its own. It's only flaw for me in its release time frame (har har) was the battle system. Today, the graphics look damned ugly. The character argument never held water for me because so much of it is optional, and the Suikoden comparison doesn't work because Suikoden has its fair share of kooky, unlikable, and undeveloped characters.

My thesis on the matter is that those who didn't like Cross either refused to step outside their lighthearted game's comfort zone, or are either too ignorant or too shortsighted to see that doing something as profound as messing with timelines will have serious repercussions.

Honestly, this is one thing that is a fairly valid criticism of Chrono Cross. It introduces the idea of "time travel can have bad side effects" to a series whose original game was built on the exact opposite premise. Chrono Trigger was a game built around changing the world for the better, giving people a better future and better lives. It was incredibly optimistic and empowering in tone. That is no small part of the charm of the game. The fact that Chrono Cross deliberately undermines that in several places is one of the major flaws of the game. Such elements come closer to being awkward retcons than creative elaborations.

I really did like many things about Chrono Cross. It had a lot of good ideas and a few moments of really great implementation. I particularly really liked how it tried to do something so different with the Chrono Trigger universe, being something much more than just a retread or a direct sequel. But it really falls short of the splendid elegance and artistry of the original game, and far too easily falls into the realm of being objectively flawed. The game struggles to even tell its plot in a coherent manner. It has many characters, but far too many feel out of place or just plain weird, and the game fails to establish a sufficiently large and stable group of main characters to build a story around (like the Suikoden games always manage to do). What is more, unlike other "lots of characters" games like Suikoden, Radiata Stories, or even Final Fantasy VI, it simply doesn't give you any way to utilize the large cast in a meaningful way, and the large cast just gets in the way of the series' trademark Dual/Triple tech system. Even the execution of the "alternate worlds" concept can be very flawed in Chrono Cross, simply because it can sometimes be very hard to keep the two different worlds straight, or remember which of your party members come from which of the two different worlds.

Chrono Cross had the same effect as Breath of Fire 5. Also the concept of messing timelines are a bad thing goes against the same quantum parallelism munjo jumbo that they try to use in the game. You can't throw people that never existed in a hell. That was just plain stupid on Square Enix part as hamering this as a sequel. Maybe in Chrono Break the timeline of Chrono Cross was to be negated.

Never buy a game published by D3 Publisher that is not WKCII. They cheated on their fans by releasing a game that they didn't support not even for a year and they released a rushed translation.

Well, that's why I normally dislike time travel and such in fiction/games/television/movies. It has to have a talented scribe, and the ability to suspend disbelief. Trigger and Cross had both, though, from my perspective, Trigger suspends disbelief with its simplicity, while Cross does it by being even simpler (no time travel, just parallels) and then very technical (players must fully explore Chronopolis to understand much of the game).

I suppose, TwinBahamut, that your awkward retcon is my creative elaboration. I will point out that retcons often arise out of a change in writers, and Cross was not only written but also directed by Trigger's scenarist. Whether Cross arose out of an originally intended direction for the story or Kato going buckwild because Sakaguchi's and Horii's kid gloves were now off, we'll never know. Regardless, to make my assertion more clear, it's that it works for the series using the Chrono world as a backdrop. That is to say, objectively, it works--we're not talking about a game that was critically panned, after all. Subjective comparisons to Trigger come across to me as sour grapes.

Furthermore, note that Chrono Trigger also did not have a way to utilize the entire cast, and really, I don't have a problem with that. Three friends went to go smash Lavos while the rest got to hang out with the Guru in The End of Time. Who you took had zero bearing on how you went; really the only options available were how you got there. Kind of shameful when you think of it that way, but I guess not all games can be Final Fantasy VI. It's overrated anyway; it always seemed very artificial to select the party to storm the castle at the end of the Suikoden games (though at least Suiko3 did it better).

Lastly, imagine a scenario with me for a moment: a Chrono Trigger where, say, Atropos, Doreen, Kino, Taban, Tata, and Toma--as an example--all are able to join as playable characters, at least as developed in techs as that other third (fourth?) wheel, Magus. They all have the same interchangeable dialogue that the other characters do (yes, it's there), and they all have triple techs obtained through varying degrees of character development (or perhaps very little). I am reasonably sure that we wouldn't be citing this optional content as a negative when considering the game. Some of these extras are more interesting and developed than others, but as a whole, they don't take away from the game, yes?

As a final aside, to those that haven't, I think there would be cases where you'd be a bit surprised if you went through the process to get those last techs for some of the characters in Cross. I'm sure many didn't bother.

it was incredibly optimistic and empowering in tone. That is no small part of the charm of the game. The fact that Chrono Cross deliberately undermines that in several places is one of the major flaws of the game. Such elements come closer to being awkward retcons than creative elaborations.

That wasn't a flaw, it was a design decision. Squaresoft's one major flaw was in underestimating just how much nonsense fanboys are capable of.